Grants:IdeaLab/Toolkits to approach outside knowledge network in Africa

Inspire campaign

Toolkits to approach outside knowledge network in Africa

Creation of a set of supporting tools in two languages (English and French) to use when approaching associations, galleries, libraries, archives and museums, with an African flavor.

idea creator• Anthere

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community organizer

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created on17:47, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

What problem are you trying to solve by doing this project? This problem should be small enough that you expect it to be completely or mostly resolved by the end of this project. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.
African UserGroups increasingly interested in approaching outside knowledge network, or approached by potential partners with lots of questions.
Awesome guides have been developed by the community or by wikimedia chapters, such as c:File:WMBE-How to work successfully with Wikipedia.pdf and do exist in French and English. But those guides obviously rely on our best cases, and most of our best cases took place in Europe and North America. The outcome is an awesome guide, but a guide focusing on very prestigious institutions in Europe and North America, a situation which is not ideal when trying to approach an african big institution or a less prestigious association.
Last, most of those guides have been by Wikimedia Chapters in Europe and North African and are taggued as such (at best on the last page of the document, at worse on every single page).

Amongst the guides currently proposed for GLAM

• c:File:WMBE-How to work successfully with Wikipedia.pdf, published by WM BE and translated in several languages
• c:File:WMBE-Free Knowledge thanks to Creative Commons Licenses.pdf, published by WM BE, translated in several languages (and appropriate for African use)
• c:File:Brochure Wikimédia France 2010-2011.pdf, published by WM FR, a bit old but still useful (heavily taggued WM FR though)
• c:File:GLAM brochure Wikimedia Nederland.pdf, GLAM brochure focused on Netherlands
• c:File:GLAM-Broschüre.pdf, GLAM brochure Germany
• c:File:Promoción de Instituciones Culturales.pdf, GLAM brochure Argentina

etc.

This project would probably requires a bit of digging/researching to identify interesting sources and search for more recent documents. But initial digging on Commons, on outreachwiki, on glamwiki space, or in the Wikimedia Resources center did not really bring evidence suitable documents would be available.

A last issue is that there are no clear case studies described of GLAM partnerships in Africa (such as in there (except Share Your Knowledge), making it difficult at the moment to easily refer to African examples. This would require research (survey) and documentation of a couple of cases.

What is your solution?

For the problem you identified in the previous section, briefly describe your how you would like to address this problem. We recognize that there are many ways to solve a problem. We’d like to understand why you chose this particular solution, and why you think it is worth pursuing. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

The idea would to create a set of tools to support GLAM activity in Africa. The diversity of tools is high, so it would not be any tool. The focus would be put on tools to use when approaching potential partners to convince, reassure and inspire.
I suggest:

1. a pdf document that can be hand-out to potential partners for reference. Africa designed (pictures, language, references adapted to an African audience). Templated in such a way that it can be easily "adapted" for any user group or with minimal country references.
2. a video (two actually, English and French) of a couple of minutes, designed for external knowledge networks, African style, to be disseminated on user group facebook, youtube channel etc.
3. a cheat sheet with handy copyright info per SubSaharan countries (most of the info is already on Wikipedia, but something nicely designed and practical to use, perhaps done in partnership with Creative Commons)

Project goals

What are your goals for this project? Your goals should describe the top two or three benefits that will come out of your project. These should be benefits to the Wikimedia projects or Wikimedia communities. They should not be benefits to you individually. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

1. more effective African UserGroups
2. identifying cases that could be documented for the benefit of every GLAM participant globally
3. potentially better understanding of Wikipedia by African institutions

Who will you be doing outreach with?

African Wikimedia Chapters and User Groups interested. Possibly Creative Commons.

Get Involved

About the idea creator

user:Anthere

Endorsements

•  Endorsed - Convincing potential partners is a major challenge for us in Africa and I feel this is a good approach to vanquishing this challenge. With kind regards. Wikicology (talk) 18:57, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
•  Endorsed - Groups across Africa absolutely need this. It would be an amazing resource and not only for those volunteer groups on our continent. Islahaddow (talk) 10:46, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
•  Endorsed - Encore une opportunité pour l'Afrique et les africains. Geugeor (talk) 23:16, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

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